Essex Repeater Group AGM Oct 2013 Report

Today, Thursday the 17th of October 2013, was the Essex Repeater Group AGM. For those unable to make it, here’s a quick report from Essex Ham.

The Annual General Meeting kicked off just after 8pm at Danbury Village Hall, and is a good mix of updates from the ERG committee, the chance to have a chat with repeater users, and the place to renew subs for the next year.

The evening was well attended, with around 25 people in the hall.

The meeting started with an update from Chairman Clive Ward G1EUC, including a thanks to the ERG team. Here’s a summary of the updates on the repeaters and beacons:

• GB3DB – This is the group’s 6 metre repeater. The repeater is on-air, trying out a new antenna from Innovantennas, but not at the ideal height, and with some damage to the feeder cable. Activities are ongoing
• GB3DA – The primary 2m repeater, and home of our Monday Night Net. As have been well documented, changes to squelch settings were made earlier this year, and the 1750Hz toneburst has been removed.
• GB3ER – The 70cm repeater at Danbury. The radio was replaced  with the backup radio earlier this year. The 1750Hz toneburst has not been removed yet, and the repeater has a longer timeout than GB3DA
• GB7ZP – The D-Star repeater. Operational, with plans to change the antenna height to improve coverage
• GB3CMS – This is the group’s oft-forgotten 10GHz beacon in Danbury. It’s hoped that this will be restored to normal operations in 2014

Next up, Secretary Murray Niman G6JYB and Treasurer Ann Tyler gave their respective reports. Nice round of applause to Ann for passing her exam with CARS last week (see CARS October Results)… her callsign is on the way.

Here is a summary of the other key announcements and updates:

• The ERG website will soon be accepting donations and membership renewals using PayPal
• ERG will be at the Waters & Stanton Xmas event, as well as at the Feb 2014 Canvey Rally
• Membership fee is still £12 – donations of kit, plus word-of-mouth promotion is appreciated

The committee for 2013/14 was elected in accordance with the AGM calling papers – no controversy or complications.

Questions from the audience included the following:

• Do members have permission to post links to the ERG site? Yes… and here’s one: ERG website. You’re welcome!
• Does ERG have the facility to provide D-Star gateway access. No, but try Waters & Stanton
• Has the ERG considered email updates and promotion, or another method of “pushing” information. Yes – calling papers for this AGM were pushed by email. Honourable mention for Essex Ham for updating Essex with ERG news and announcements. There was some discussion of using Facebook, but with a low percentage of ERG member using Facebook, email is a better bet.

After the formal part of the meeting – time to have a few refreshments courtesy of the ERG, to have a mingle, and to try and win a prize in the raffle. Eight prizes on offer with the top prize being a Watson Wireless Weather Station (handy for giving our WX reports on-air). The RSGB stick-of-rock was the last to be picked.

Here’s a group picture of some of the attendees of tonight’s meeting:

The next time to catch up with the Essex Repeater Group is at the Waters & Stanton Christmas get-together in Hockley on the 14th of December 2013.

Well done to the ERG team for the well-organised meeting – and great to catch up with everyone.
Pete M0PSX